pull your hair back
with a simple black tie
take off your shirt
leaving the black bra you adore
no shoes or socks
slip off your pants and underwear
lie in the floor
or on your bed
anywhere
there
there
you are the only place
i ever want to go
—P.L. Thomas
they wanted everything
of each other
first she professed wanting everything
and he was afraid
eventually too he wanted everything
and she was overwhelmed
everything they discovered left no room
for anything else even oxygen
everything was heavier than anything
they had ever held before
everything is too hard she said it shouldn’t
be this hard she shook her head
everything he had ever wanted in her voice
and her face like infinity
everything had enveloped them like time
theirs to give without demand
•
he typed out the entire poem for her
because he became suddenly certain
that she must have these words
like those on the scrap of paper he found
in her handwriting just for him
he smoothed and centered the scrap
on a large index card taping it in place
this his bookmark in everything he read
everything
—P.L. Thomas
Do my crying underwater
I can’t get down any farther“Demons,” The National
will you come with no make up
barefoot in a soft dress shoulders bared
to sit in the grass as you look to the sky
with your legs crossed at the ankles
i am hoping it is a sunny day
or softly raining and warm
if you cry there for me gone
i hope i rest still in your heart
as you in mine no longer beating
if i can i will miss you forever
the weight of those legs in my lap
the soft curve of your foot in my hand
i died knowing you never needed me
i lived knowing you always wanted me
—P.L. Thomas
when they came for the apostrophes
its like someone took all the stars
turning the night sky flat black
we were left with isnt and wont
all our its were jumbled
and everyone lost all their possessions
we began to bury dashes in the backyard
lock semicolons in chests in the attic
stuff commas by the handfuls in our pockets
some times in the inky darkness of night
exclamation points hidden like knives
under our pillows
we held hands or spooned whispering
itll be alright
they wont win
they wont win
—P.L. Thomas
How did I know it had happened? Because of its absence now, because I still felt the loss of it…
Borne, Jeff VanderMeer
you&i
are sitting in the bathroom floor
sidebyside and facing one another
because this seems the most natural thing
you&i
exhausted and crying
like two lower-case pronouns
joined by an ampersand
i&you
—P.L. Thomas
But what if you discover that the price of purpose is to render invisible so many other things?
Acceptance, Jeff Vandermeer
we buy an RV without a plan or map
and then unceremoniously we leave
somehow we reach the desert
where we park for days then weeks
because we have been watching sometimes naked
on the couch Breaking Bad
we realize we are o so alone
except for sand and brush
on warm bright mornings i watch
you outside hanging clothes
sometimes wearing only a shirt unbuttoned
other times only panties soft tan like your skin*
i do not run through the door and sand
tackling you cradled in my arms to the ground
because my chest is overfilled with this
so that everything seems to be spilling from my eyes
and once you turned seeing me through the window
curtsying and opening the shirt with a smile
people i suspect don’t know
a goddamn thing about deserts
or being all alone as we are
with 14 hours of sunshine and cacti
* Inspired by the artwork of Valeria Ko
when you forget about me
where do i reside
1000s of me’s and you’s and us’s
haunting your memories
the smallest figment of me
clinging to the lining of your heart
the remnants of my protestations
etched across your bones
and frantically burrowing deeper
into the reddest marrow of you
when you forget about me
where do i reside
when you remember does my name
leap like love from your throat
i am afraid of these forgettings
i am afraid of becoming a ghost
invisible and silent and immaterial
drifting bit by bit into just nothing
please don’t bury me in forgetting
i don’t want to be your ghost
—P.L. Thomas
